“Abdul received a difficult pass, he was looking back, Kučerík didn’t let go of the third and hit him. Even on TV they showed that he didn’t jump. It’s only natural that he leaves the ice after contact, because if he doesn’t, he’ll fall on his face. The result is that such an intervention will result in a penalty until the end of the match,” Pospíšil shook his head in an interview with Sport.cz, adding that from his point of view it was a “clean intervention, a tree for which the spectators stood up and applauded.”
The chairman of the disciplinary commission of the top competition, Viktor Ujčík, and the manager of extra-league referees, Vladimír Pešina, found Pospíšil to be right, even if only partially, because according to Pešina, it was not a clean tackle and a penalty should have been awarded. But only smaller.
Ujčík stopped the disciplinary proceedings against Kučerík, stating that it was a head-on tackle on a player in possession of the puck, which did not deviate from the nature of the game, and his punishment falls exclusively within the competence of the referees of the duel.
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Pešina then stated that the head referees correctly went to check the amount of the punishment given for the assault with the help of the video, but they evaluated the situation incorrectly.
“It was not a reckless threat to an opponent that would have been the reason for a bigger penalty, and the fouling Kučerík should only have received a two-minute penalty. Although the referees managed the match very well up to this point, I awarded the chief referee Robin Šír a financial fine of 25 percent of the match fee for this misconduct,” announced Pešina.
